RACING FORWARD

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 17, 21 January 1944, Page 5

RACING FORWARD

SOVIET TANK DIVISIONS

LONDON, January 20. The Russian tank divisions, which have smashed through the 12-jnile German defence belt on the Gulf of Finland, have broken intq open country and are now racing towards the great lateral railway linking Leningrad with the Estonian town of Narva, says the Moscow correspondent of the British United Press. The Red Army at three places is only 12 miles from this vital line, which supplies so many German divisions on the Leningrad front. This break-through is the first major stratef;ic victory in the latest offensive to ree all the Baltic countries. A number of Nazi divisions are still resisting south of Peterhof, a town which is famous for its great Imperial palace, which is already back in Rusr sian hands. These German divisions arp'virtuaily trapped between the Russian wings advancing from Oranienbaum and Pulkova, which may already have met. The Russians less than 100 miles to the south-east are still advancing in the big double drive on both sides of Novgorod after capturing Vitka. The northern force cut the NovgorodLeningrad railv/ay at Boloinaya. The forward units of this force are a little under 70 miles from the Russian advanced units thrusting south from' Oranienbaum. Between them and stretching to the north-east are 5000 square miles of country in which the bulk of the Nazi divisions of the northern front are still concentrated. Most of the railways serving the area run from the Russian-controlled area to the Novgorod-Kirishi . line, which is already cut, and another big encirclement of the Germans seems possible in this area.